The field of chromatin regulation is arguably the fastest growing field in biology at the moment. The reason for this is that chromatin regulation, via histone modification, impinges on many areas of DNA biology including transcription, replication and repair. Furthermore the pathways that lead to chromatin modifications are targeted in cancer and may be important for many diseases since the process involves the regulation of DNA functions. This heightens the need to expand and explore this field. As a consequence, this meeting is very timely. Although there may be other meetings in 2005 which encompass part of the remit of this meeting (as expected for a field of this kind) this Keystone meeting has unique features to provide. It is meant to foster participation of not only the great and the good but also an opportunity will be given to young, up and coming scientists, and even postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, to present their work orally. The programme will have a number of slots which are specifically left unfilled so we can ask young investigators at the last minute to present their latest work, through abstracts that will be submitted. In addition, in the afternoons we will organise workshops to allow the selection of a substantial number of posters for oral presentation selected on merit from the abstracts. This will increase the visibility of young investigators and allow postdocs and graduate students to participate fully.